


A Man at War

by kindkit



Category: Colditz (1972)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Ficlet, M/M, Sexual Frustration, Virginity or Celibacy Kink, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/pseuds/kindkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pat after Colditz. There's a war on, even in Switzerland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man at War

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kink Bingo prompt "virginity/celibacy."
> 
> I'm assuming that Pat Grant's post-escape military service resembles that of Pat Reid, on whom he was loosely based. Reid stayed in Switzerland, collecting intelligence from escaped POWs for MI6. Like all my Colditz stories, this one is influenced by Halotolerant's stories (read them, they're marvellous!) and by our many Colditz discussions.

There's a war on. People say it all the time, even here in Bern which is not at war, although it harbours plenty of men like Pat who are, one way or another. Food is rationed, coal is short, prices are high, travel is impossible and anxiety rampant: there's a war on.

Pat doesn't mind about the food or the winter cold that's almost as piercing indoors as out. He's got Colditz for comparison. What he minds, to his surprise, is something that's not on any ration list. He misses sex. Painfully. 

Here, too, he's got Colditz for comparison.

He tries not to think about Dick, but the memories have graven themselves deep. Forgetting would require a violence beyond erasure. Traces haunt his skin, his tongue, all his senses. 

Considered rationally--and he has tried, still tries, having always been a rational man--what he misses are trivial things. A well-shaped smooth-skinned body, a sharp jaw and soft mouth, a bold pair of hands, a stiff phallus, a voice saying his name. He could have those things. He could have sex. There are squares where young men loiter, offers implied in their lounging bodies and watchful eyes. They're refugees, mostly, Jews, unemployed and desperate. He could have anything he wanted for a few francs or even just a meal. Rationally, he has thought of it. Irrationally, the idea sickens him.

There are other men, too. A few others, acquaintances who've given him glances he would not have recognised, before Dick. There was even an escaped POW, admirable and not unhandsome, who after answering all Pat's official questions asked him, with an unofficial smile, what fun was to be had in Switzerland. Pat looked from his thin strong shoulders to his knowing eyes and felt his mouth go dry, his heart speed. And said, "I wouldn't know, I'm afraid. Busy. There's a war on, even here."

He supposes he might be a puritan. But he never felt prudish with Dick. Never squeamish, never reluctant except in fear of exactly this. Something else people say is _You can't miss what you've never had_. Pat was a virgin before Dick. Forty-one years old and he'd never even kissed a man on the lips. But it didn't bother him; it felt like his natural condition. Not anymore. What's natural to him now is Dick. Dick's pleasure, his tactful guidance, his ease, his unselfconsciousness. His flirtation before, his enthusiasm during, his relaxation after, his little reminiscent smiles and his half-aware habit of touching the places where Pat had bitten him.

Pat misses it. Misses him. Can't bear it, but does, because he must.

Of course he masturbates. He needs the physical relief. He's learnt to do it without thinking of anything, and it only leaves him a little sad afterwards. The lesson from the first time he did it after Colditz, when he'd been waiting almost three weeks for Dick and Muir to arrive in Switzerland, has stuck with him. Halfway through, imagining Dick's body against his, the thought had surfaced that he might never see Dick again, that Dick might be _dead_. He'd lain awake all that bleak night on the verge of tears.

There's not much pleasure in masturbation, but the truth is Pat doesn't want any pleasure he can give himself. Nor the substitute he could find with some other man. Ersatz pleasure, margarine pleasure, adulterated with acorns and sawdust, bitter in the mouth and un-nourishing. He would rather do without.

Someday there won't be a war on. If the Nazis lose, as it begins to seem they might, if civilisation survives, then perhaps there won't be so much to bear in the name of duty. Love--he can call it love now, alone in the dark with it--won't be classed with coffee and bananas as a luxury it would be selfish to mourn for. He can go in search of Dick then. And if he finds him, if Dick's alive, if Dick wants him still in that changed world of peace and freedom . . . he can't think of it. It hurts to think of it, and it distracts. But Pat can feel it in him, cramped between longing and duty, a tiny seed waiting to unfold.


End file.
